


A Path To Redemption

by ashton_bees



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon/OC - Freeform, M/M, Mild Gore, Mild Language, OC backstory, Other, Swearing, eventually, i swear he’ll get to be happy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-18
Updated: 2019-09-19
Packaged: 2020-10-20 22:21:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20682872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashton_bees/pseuds/ashton_bees
Summary: writing backstory for an oc!!! i realize he’s  cringy or fucking whatever bc he’s a canon ship. if you take issue with it die by my sword





	1. Where It All Began

**Author's Note:**

> so i’m gonna upload these in chunks with a couple Bits at a time... leave kudos or comments or whatever if you like it & if y’all want particular fallout fanfic suggest characters & maybe what kinda thing you’re looking for and i might do it......i need more ideas

FIVE  
The little shack they lived in - Harvey loved it. The floors were creaky, sure, and sometimes Da had to go and get metal to fix the spots where the roof drooped in, but it was home, with Mama and Da and the two brahmin they kept. Da took Harvey out sometimes and sat him on his lap while he milked the brahmin, and taught Harvey how, too. Other days, Mama would take him out, and together they’d care for the corn and the tatos and the mutfruit. 

“When you turn thirteen, son, I’ll take you with me to Diamond City to sell the extra food, and the other things we sell, and we’ll buy you your own gun. How’s that sound?” Da had said, when Harvey was four, and he’d left for the monthly trek to Diamond City. 

It was only a day’s trip there and back, but Da left right after sunrise, and the time it took to protect the brahmin and sell everything meant it was a couple hours from dark and Da said never, ever, travel after dark. “Bad things happen after dark, son, don’t you ever leave the house after dark,” he’d say, and Harvey would listen, “after dark, you hold onto that knife I gave you, and your mama has her gun, and you two protect each other. I’ll be back soon.” And he always did.

TEN  
His tenth birthday was two days ago, and his parents gave him a binder. They’d bought it from someone who knew how to sew clothes, and they’d commissioned it just for him, right out of the family savings. So he got a binder, and some more boy’s clothes, and Da said that Harvey was quite mature for his age so he’d teach him how to shoot a proper gun.

Da must have knocked on the door, because he saw Mama walk over to the door and open it, and she looked relieved.

“Hey, son! You ready for target practice?”

Harvey nodded, stuffed his feet into his too-big boots, and ran out the door. Da was waiting for him at the fence where they always practiced. He handed Harvey a small shotgun, and sat next to him.

“Alright.. see that mole rat?” 

Harvey looked over. He saw it - a big, fat one, digging around near their crops.

“You know how to look through the barrel. The only difference is this time, he’s moving a little.”

Harvey nodded again and tugged the gun up to his shoulder. He aimed.

“Get him in the head, son.”

Bam! The mole rat squealed, shot in the neck. It dug partially underground and then went still. Two more mole rats popped up, then ducked under the ground before Harvey could even reload the gun, and then they were right on him, clawing at his legs, and he swung the gun down holding it by the barrel and smacked the rat right in the head. He dropped it, pulled his knife, and Da brought out a handgun and shot the one Harvey had stunned with a good hit on the head, and after a couple slashes from Harvey the other one was down and bloody and twitching. Basically dead.

Harvey looked down at his legs - covered in scratches, bleeding, and he felt a little faint. He felt Da’s arms under his legs, and heard “MARIE!”, and then he passed out.

When he awoke, he was in bed, legs all wrapped up. Da was at the stove, cleaning the mole rats with one already in the slow-burner. Mama was sitting beside him.

“Harvey! You’re awake..” she whispered, rubbing his forehead.

Da looked over. “Not a bad shot, for your first time, Harvey. I’m proud-” He set the knife down and wiped some of the blood off his hands with the kitchen towel “- how are your legs? Next time, I’ll make sure there’s no more rats around.”

Harvey smiled as best he could, exhausted. “They’re okay, Da.” 

“That’s good to hear.”

“I wanna shoot again tomorrow.”

Da laughed. “Alright, son.”

TEN AGAIN  
Raiders, raiders outside, Da first noticed when he heard the brahmin screaming and then the raiders shot him clean through the head. Mama grabbed Harvey and dragged him to the floor, and she seemed so put together yet so shattered Harvey didn’t know what to do. They looked after each other, Da watched over them, and Mama looked after Harvey and Da, and when Da was gone Harvey looked after Mama. Da couldn’t be gone. Who’d go to Diamond City? Harvey couldn’t be alone, but they couldn’t leave the house empty. It was all wrong.

“Harvey, look at me.” Mama said softly.

He nodded and looked at her. Her deep, dark eyes, and rich brown skin, and the way her face looked tense and hard while still being the soft expression he always saw. Her dimples, her kinky hair up in a ponytail, her hands still black with dirt.

“Harvey, Mama’s gonna keep you safe, now, okay? Go into your room, you crawl, and take your da’s shotgun. Stay in that room. Lock the doors, lock the windows, and don’t make a sound, hear?”

He nodded. His throat was dry, and his hands shook, and he wished he could be as still and quiet and brave as his mama. She pressed a kiss to his forehead and sent him off.

“I love you, Harvey.”

“Yeah, mama. I love you too.”

He crawled in. He locked the door, the windows, took the shotgun, loaded it and sat with the ammo box beside him, hidden under the bed.

Then he heard the gunshot.

He cried, but no one heard him. He stuffed his face in his arm and held the gun ready to fire and cried, and he sat like that until he heard one of the raiders call, “CLEAR THE HOUSE, BOYS!”, and then he made sure the gun was good and clean and ready. The second time he’d shoot a living thing. The first time he’d shoot a person.

One of them kicked the door in. “Hey-hey, who’s in here? Piece of shit. I’ll find you.”

Harvey aimed, and shot them in the ankle.

“SHIT!”, they screamed, and tumbled to the ground, and Harvey saw their face as they scrambled for their gun. “You little fuck, you think you can kill me, hiding under the-“

Bam! A shot to the head. Brain visible, jaw open, bloody and disgusting. Harvey wanted to puke, to scream and cry, to have his mama back. Anything, to have his mama and his da back. He reloaded the gun with shaky hands.

Thunk, thunk, thunk.. Boots on rotting hardwood floor.

Hands, under the bed, hands, moved the bed to the side, and Harvey picked himself up and shrugged the gun against his shoulder. The man lifted his hands, smiling.

“Well, well, little’un. Look at you,” He cooed.

Harvey put his finger on the trigger. “Don’t hurt me! I’ll shoot!”

The man laughed and kicked the body to the side. More blood sputtered out, and Harvey saw brain matter smear against the floor. “So I see.” Harvey almost puked, right there, watching the man.

He held out a hand towards Harvey.

“Come with me, son. Ain’t like you’ve got anywhere else to go but heaven.. if you know what I’m saying.”

Harvey understood.


	2. Goodneighbor, Good Friends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the first few years of harvey’s life in goodneighbor, up to just before meeting aaliyah (my sole).. soon it’ll be caught up to Current Events. soon

**NINETEEN**

‘Ain’t like you’ve got anywhere else to go but heaven..’

Those words haunted him. Harvey still kept his dad’s old shotgun, kept the thing clean and upgraded it sometimes, despite the shit the other raiders gave him. It didn’t matter. Harvey had his Jet and his Mentats and his aim, even better with a good sniper rifle, and the others had their grenades and their little handguns. But Harvey was determined to survive and get out of the violent shit-hole he’d been living in. _ No one _ would stop him.

_ “Harvey! _ You wanna eat?” Sheila called.

Harvey set his gun down. “Stupid, you know my shift’s in five minutes. I’m up on the east tower.”

Sheila huffed and pulled her hair up in a ponytail. “I’ll bring you some food after I eat. Stupid.”

“Dumbass!”

“Shithead!”

Sheila left, and Harvey packed up his rifle and shotgun, two stimpacks he’d saved, crackers he’d hidden under his bed and some string to pass the time. As soon as he heard the shift bell ring he darted out of his room and into the tower. Summer in the Commonwealth was shit, always had been, and he was thankful for the tarp Gilligan let them keep at the towers. Mostly, Harvey was thankful to be a higher-up. Better shifts, better food, more stimpacks, but most importantly - his own _ room _, a privilege only five or six outside of Gilligan and Killian had.

He looked over the wall. There, walking down the street, were a group of twenty. A couple ghouls, three brahmin, and a dog. Dinner, to Harvey, and if he could shoot them first - a better ranking in the system. 

_ Or, _ a part of him whispered, _ a chance to escape _.

The report whistle. Clear, from north, clear, from west, from south… Clear, called Harvey, staring at the company below. None of them looked to carry anything heavy, and they looked more like a caravan than anything. Harvey would let them pass as best as they could. If they got themselves killed after.. well, that wasn’t his problem, was it?

Then, the _ alarm _ whistle, and the too-familiar sound of gunshots.

Harvey yanked his shotgun out his bag, slung the bag over his shoulder, and ran. Ran downstairs to the floor his room was in, one of the most secure rooms, and the gunshots grew louder and echoed.

“Harvey? Harvey!”

Sheila was running down the hall, molotov in one hand and 10 mm. in the other. “Thank Christ, you’re okay, Harvey—“

Harvey grabbed Sheila by the wrist and tugged her into one of the side rooms.

“Sheila? What do you think you’re _ doing _?”

“Making sure you’re safe, dummy. What’s it look like?”

Harvey groaned. “I can take care of myself. Go - if Killian catches you here with me, like this, we’re _ both _ going to be on bathroom duty.”

Sheila smiled and popped her hip. “And if it was only me on bathroom duty?”

“Oh, then I wouldn’t complain.”

A grenade went off in the room next to them.

“Let’s run.”

“Great plan,” Harvey commented, and ran out the room.

Sheila ducked behind a counter and let go of Harvey’s hand. She turned, whispered something Harvey didn’t hear, and ran into the main room - filled with fellow raiders, and filled with the group Harvey had seen earlier, or at least people in similar gear. Harvey saw a grenade go flying, heard more screams, and ran into the hallway.

It was a coward’s move, and if he survived, Killian would have his head. Gilligan would demote him back to Fresh Meat, Sheila - Harvey didn’t want to think what Sheila would think of him.

Harvey ran into the south tower, carrying his pack of guns and food over his shoulder, and slid down the stairs to the floor below. He heard another grenade go off, a few more gunshots, and then silence. One of the people from the new group yelled something Harvey couldn’t understand, and then he heard footsteps echoing through the building. Sheila.. he wouldn’t think about Sheila.

The group would have cleared the first floor already, and they’d work their way up through the second and onto the top level where Killian and Gilligan stayed. Up there, Harvey knew, was where most of the turrets were, as well as mines. The only good way to clear it would be to throw in a pulse mine and fry the wires in every turret at once. They were screwed, and that meant Harvey was, too.

But he couldn’t think about that.

The latch on the hatch to the basement came loose after two solid hits with the base of his pistol. He tugged open the hatch, dragged his bag in, and jumped into it without a thought for how he planned to leave, or what he’d do if he was the only one left. He heard the faint click of the lock sliding back into its place, leaving him alone in the dark with the dripping of water, and the glow of the brain fungus, and the horrible feeling he’d abandoned Sheila and he was the reason she’d die, if she wasn’t dead already.

  * ••

“Hey, Mal! Come lookit this!”

Harvey awoke scared and confused, clutching his gun, to the sound of a woman right outside his hideout. He heard footsteps around the trapdoor as someone walked over to her.

“Yeah, neat, isnit?” The woman said, though Harvey hadn’t heard ‘Mal’ say anything. “Don’t tell the rest of the boys. Just you ‘n I.”

The latch clicked open, and whoever it was hopped into the basement without a second thought, flashlight shining around. Harvey scooted behind a cement beam and loaded his shotgun - his _ father’s _ shotgun. The woman sighed. 

Another thump, and Harvey knew someone else had come down. They sounded bigger, their armor heavier, but not super-mutant or power armor sized, and Harvey had to thank whatever gods were left. 

The flashlight hit him with a blinding yellow glow, and all he could think to do was pull the shotgun up to his shoulder, put his finger on the trigger, and jump back. The woman dimmed the light a little.

“.. _ Christ _, Mal, it’s a kid!”

The man, Mal, walked over. His eyes widened and immediately he looked heartbroken.

“I- I’ll shoot! Stay back!” Harvey yelled.

The woman held up her hands. “Kiddo, s’okay. Really. We aren’t here to hurt you..”

_ “Yes you are!” _ Screamed Harvey, and he pushed himself against the wall, trying his damndest not to cry.

“No, kid. No.. you’re scared, aren’t you? You don’t want this. You’ve killed enough.”

He looked at her. Mal looked at Harvey, hands still up. They looked so _ human _ . Harvey tried so _ hard _ to make the people he’d killed not human, but here they stood before him, talking, trying to talk to _ him _ , trying to _ help _ . Hands up. Weapons put away, and they were _ humans _. Before Harvey could think to stop himself, he set his gun aside and pulled his legs to his chest and cried.

“Oh, little’un—“

Harvey cried more. ‘Little’un’, like Killian back at his house, and he could barely even think.

“Can I come over, kid? What’s your name?”

He nodded. “.. Harvey. M’name’s Harvey..”

“Harvey, kid.. come back home with us.”

**TWENTY ONE**

“Story goes, twenty one’s when kids were finally allowed to drink, before the bombs dropped!“ Jessie started.

“Then the bombs hit, and we figured out that a little whiskey helps your kids to bed!” Harvey added.

The crowd laughed. Jessie gave a joking scowl and a noogie and continued. “And today, we celebrate the twenty-first of our own _ Harvey!” _

Harvey laughed and sat down at his table with a Gwinett’s IPA and some radstag meat. Malcolm and Jessie sat across and beside him.

“To another year not dead!” Jessie cheered, and the table clinked glasses and laughed and drank. 

Harvey drank, and drank, and probably drank a little more than was safe to. But that was okay. They’d already set up camp for the night, and cleared the area, and it was his _ birthday _ and by god Harvey would celebrate. This was home, and family, and nothing would make him give it up. These were people he’d kill for, and these were people he’d die for.

**TWENTY TWO**

Harvey’s legs hurt. The company’s day spent in the East City Downs had left them well-fed, sure, but low on caps and all tired from late nights and early mornings. That day they left before sunrise - had every tent packed and every bag and suitcase on a brahmin’s back before the first ray of sun, and they were all gone without a trace by first light.

Jessie had said they were going to Goodneighbor - Malcolm had some old friends he wanted to see, and Harvey hadn’t been yet. From what he’d heard, the place was filled with druggies, drifters, and other assorted rejects of the Commonwealth, but Harvey _ knew _ his past made him even more of an outcast. All he could do was hope. 

••• at goodneighbor, two days later •••

“Jessie! Mal! Welcome back.” Called a ghoul.

Jessie’s entire face brightened - Harvey assumed this was one of the people Malcolm had been wanting to see, judging by how fast he gave his brahmin’s lead to Harvey and ran at the man.

The ghoul was tall, bald, and about as handsome as ghouls get. His pants looked just tight enough to be hard to run in, and his too large tank-top would have exposed a bit too much skin for a wanderer if not for the two jackets he wore over it.

“Who’s the new kid?” He asked, pointing at Harvey.

Jessie grabbed Harvey by the shoulder and pulled him closer. “This-“ She gave him a hearty smack on the shoulder “- is Harvey. The ex-er we told you about a couple years ago. He’s no new blood to the business.”

The man looked a little uneasy, but put his hand out. Harvey shook it.

“John. It’s good to meet you, Harvey.”

Harvey nodded. “You too.”

Jessie rolled her eyes and grabbed Harvey’s hand. “C’mon, kid, I’m taking you round the town.”

John looked a little worried, but followed them, talking to Malcolm. He seemed to understand sign, a skill not many Commonwealth folks had to their name, and Malcolm seemed happy enough to wander the place with John at his side.

Jessie tugged Harvey into a square, and into a building leading to a place with red-tinted light and cool air. 

“This is the Third Rail. It’s where most of us caravaners and drifters go - the owner and barman, Whitechapel Charlie, will keep us fed. Ask for me at Hotel Rexford when you’re ready to end the day. Go mingle.”

Mingle. Harvey wasn’t great at that. But it sounded like this town, Goodneighbor, and especially this bar, was the kind of place that his type hung around in, and if Jessie said it was safe… well, he had to trust Jessie. She’d run off without him and now it was up to him to talk to.. literally anyone!

He hopped down the stairs two steps at a time until he was down in the bar. At the bar, cleaning a glass, was a Mr. Handy Harvey could only assume to be Mr. Whitechapel. Around him were some _ very _ drunk drifters, and mercenary-looking types Harvey didn’t want to talk to. He looked the room over again. There was a back room, but Harvey didn’t trust back rooms, and a sofa with a lanky guy sipping a Gwinnett’s.

Harvey walked to the bar. “Mr. Whitechapel?”

He looked up. “Whot you want?”

“Uh.. Gwinnett’s? Do you have any IPAs?”

He laughed. “Yeah, it all tastes like shit anyway.” He passed Harvey a beer. “Don’t come back if you want anyfin good, though.”

Harvey nodded and forced a laugh, then sat down across from the man on the sofa. He looked over, scanned Harvey up and down, and smiled.

His teeth were.. surprisingly straight. He looked like he hadn’t been in many fights, and he had the scarf and layered jackets of a drifter sitting next to him. His hair was black, a little greasy, and unkempt in a way that had to have taken time to style. His eye was a startling icy blue, though, and the other one was just.. gone. Otherwise, his arms had a few knife scars and a notable amount of bullet scars - the kind of thing you didn’t show in the Commonwealth, unless you were _ really _ cocky and _ really _ foolhardy. But his motor gloves and tank top spoke to his confidence, or stupidity, and he’d at least covered his legs - long cargo pants with stuffed pockets and surprisingly well-fitting combat boots.

He laughed at Harvey and held a hand out “Name’s Percy. You’re new here.”

Harvey nodded, looking away.

“Who’re you traveling with?”

“Jessie and Malcolm?”

Percy nodded knowingly and leaned back into the sofa, legs crossed, looking too smug. 

“They’re good people - Jessie’s lot. It’s been a while since they’ve stopped in Goodneighbor though. I heard they went north, to the Capital Wasteland.”

“_ We _ did go to the Wasteland. Stayed close to Megaton, though.”

Percy laughed. “They finally deactivate that old bomb? Thing’s been waiting to go off for two hundred years.”

“Uh, yeah. It was deactivated when we got there, though. Dunno who did it.”

“I heard some vault dweller did it, about five years ago.”

Harvey paused a moment. He would have been seventeen, then, still in the worst of Gilligan’s gang. 

“There aren’t many vault people left, are there?” Harvey asked.

Percy laughed. “That’s an understatement. Between raider parties, not being prepared when they open vault doors, and those experiments Vault-Tec ran, vault people are all dead or still holed up in there. Or, y’know.. mutes.”

Mutes. Harvey knew. FEV turned them to centaurs or super mutants, or ghouls, though vault ghouls weren’t common. They were all either feral or in massive ghoul cities like Necropolis, but ghoul cities didn’t really exist in the East. He took a sip of his beer, and Percy gave him another once-over.

“So where’s Jessie off to now? Your lot staying here a while?”

“A couple weeks,” Harvey shifted in his seat, “we need to make some more money, so you’ll probably see me around doing odd jobs.”

Percy nodded. “Odd jobs, huh? If you don’t mind not knowing who’s paying, and some sketchy work, Charlie almost always has work.”

“Sketchy?”

“Stained shirts.”

Stained shirts, something of a catch-all phrase Harvey’d seen with people who worked in the shadows, in the back-alleys, and people with scarred up arms who were more than familiar with _ fire _ arms too. _ Stained shirts _ meant blood. Whether it be someone getting sense knocked into them, or shot, or cleaning an entire warehouse.. Someone would be leaving bloody.

“I don’t do that kind of work.”

Percy let out a harsh, barking laughter. “Down here, in Goodneighbor, let alone the _ Rail _, and you don’t take that kinda work? Even having travelled with Jessie?”

“That— that’s _ different _! You don’t, you haven’t, well.. It isn’t the same.”

Percy tossed his head back. “Like hell it isn’t. You get caps all the same. You’ll learn, kid.”

Harvey took that as his cue to leave. He picked up his beer, paid Mr. Whitechapel, and left the Rail with an empty, achy sort of feeling in his chest. His first chance to meet someone outside of the caravan, to make a friend, _ anything _, and he blew it on some argument over what kind of stained shirt work was okay. None of it was okay. Harvey’d just learned not to see the victims as human.


End file.
